Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child36 of an otherwise stateless child’s right to the nationality of the State of birth that enabled legal challenges to State discretion to go beyond a demand for due process of law in the most egregious deprivation cases. The contribution of the African human rights institutions was cemented in 2024, when African States adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights relating to the Specific Aspects of the Right to a Nationality and the Eradication of Statelessness in Africa, the most expansive treaty framework to date, elaborating not only substantive obligations of States but also the procedures needed to implement them.37 2.1. The obligation to prevent and reduce statelessness Peter Spiro traced the evolution of the international law regime on nationality and statelessness from its initially thin content, focused on conflicts of law and the rights of States, into a more robust set of rules, concerned also with the rights of individuals. By 2011, he could assert the positive obligation to grant nationality in certain cases, especially for the prevention of statelessness in case of succession of States.38 While the extent of State obligations to avoid statelessness is still contested in international law,39 the trend is towards the strengthening of these rules. The avoidance of statelessness was emphasised in a series of resolutions of the UN Human Rights Council on arbitrary deprivation of nationality,40 and has also increasingly featured in interventions by States at the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review.41 In 2018, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCtHR) held that the elements of the right to nationality in Article 15 UDHR are part of customary international law.42 The presumption that the State in whose territory a birth takes place should grant nationality to a child who would otherwise be stateless is one of the longest-standing in international law, established since the League of Nations Convention on Nationality, and incorporated into the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.43 Nevertheless, the first regional or international court or treaty body to find a violation of this obligation in a contentious case was the IACtHR in the Yean and Bosico case;44 the Court strengthened its position almost a decade later in a further decision against the Dominican Republic.45 The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) then drew on the Yean and Bosico decision in the first decision it adopted, against Kenya,46 following this decision with its General Comment No 2 on Right to a Name, Birth Registration and a 36 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (adopted 11 July 1990, entered into force 29 November 1999) art 6. 50 of the 55 Member States of the African Union are parties. 37 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights relating to the Specific Aspects of the Right to a Nationality and the Eradication of Statelessness in Africa (adopted 18 February 2024) (Protocol to the African Charter on the Right to a Nationality). 38 Spiro (n 6) 709–12, 721. 39 See discussion in von Rütte (n 12) ch 4.III; van Waas (n 12) ch VIII. 40 For the Human Rights Council resolutions on the right to a nationality, see OHCHR, Nationality and Statelessness: Resolutions <https://www.ohchr.org/en/nationality-and-statelessness/resolutions>. See also n 147. 41 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, ‘Mainstreaming Statelessness and the Right to Nationality in the Universal Periodic Review: UPR Third Cycle Evaluation and Lessons for the Future’ (2023). 42 Anudo Ochieng Anudo v United Republic of Tanzania (Merits) (AfCtHR, 2018) App No 012/2015, para 76. 43 League of Nations Convention on Nationality (n 14) arts 14 and 15; Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (n 23) art 1(1). 44 Girls Yean and Bosico (n 19) para 142. 45 Expelled Dominicans and Haitians v Dominican Republic (IACtHR, 2014) Ser C No 282. 46 Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) and Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) v Kenya Communication No 002/2009 (ACERWC, 2011) (Kenyan Nubian Children’s Case).